Drying Room is a rendition of the classification that we use to perceive the world and to create various groupings and structures. It does not aim to define the concept of classification or even its necessity. Rather, it serves as a basis for examing questions of this nature. Drying Room reveals the notability of space, artwork, perception and the moment of it as the parts of the knowledge.

Simo Ripatti (b. 1975) is a Finnish visual artist. Studied at the sculpture department of the Finnish Academy of fine arts, Helsinki and Institute of fine Arts, Lahti, Finland.

Pilvi Ojala, paintings

Pilvi Ojala (b. 1973) observes inner drama in a calm, almost restrained way. In her recent works she depicts her dreams and feelings, making use of a long tradition of religious and mythological imagery.The strong connection to art history paired with an almost ruthless introspection gives these self portraits a strange, ambigious quality. Life is tragic, angst a daily companion, sorrow so ordinary it needs a body of it´s own. But when Ojala puts her figures in the limeligth of her small stages, it triggers laughter. There is great relief in seeing that what bugs us most, also make us laugh.

Ojala studied printmaking in Kuvataideakatemia, in Helsinki. She says that se slipped into painting almost accidentally. This might be why it is so easy to look at her paintings. The material itself is not a problem, rather, it is the most precise way to tell us about life seen through her eyes.

BLESS YOU

In his paintings Paavo Paunu (b. 1965) mediates the story of being human. It is essential to identify the limits and create platforms for confronting. There is space without clear form, based on emotions, hopes, beliefs and truth.

Paavo Paunu (b. 1965) graduated from The Painting Department at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 1990. He is working in the fields of painting, sculpture and installations . He has appointed several exhibitions abroad and in Finland.

How can we give form to the formless: to mental impressions, to fleeting thoughts, to riddles that have no answer? Paavo Paunu’s production induces a sense of the entire inexplicability of reality. It raises questions about who I am, what I experience, and what is important in life.
Paunu is a painter of space: he situates his paintings in exhibition spaces, the result being integrated wholes that resemble installations. He is also known for his sculptural paintings and painted sculptures. Right from the start of his artistic career, he made large-scale works, which soon began to acquire greater depth. Stages thus begin to emerge out of the paintings, extending in front of and behind the ground canvas.

Paunu’s production is not limited by the conventional tools of sculpture or painting, nor by any obvious role models, genres or references to theoretical sources. The sound of his works resonates from further away, from out of his own world, which is, nevertheless, human reality. His art is marked by psychological surrealism and expressive symbolism. The aim is to seek out the timeless core stratum of human beings, what motivates their actions, their feelings; ranging from goodness, trust and triumph to shame and unbelief. Paunu’s pictures reflect the uniqueness of experiences and the relationship of the finite human being with the unknown: with nature, with the depths of the mind, and fantasies.Martta Heikkilä

Karen Koltermann

The Shelter

In September 2018 Karen Koltermann had the opportunity to take part in a guided tour to the Gorham Cave Complex while she was an artist in residence in Gibraltar.
In a long gone time, which we call the Middle Palaeolithic, the Gorham Cave was inhabited by Neanderthals who, as has come to light in 2014, also made art. One 39,000 years old cross hatching is still visible and is deemed evidence of the inhabitants’ faculties of abstract thinking and their impressive ability to express themselves.

In the current exhibition in Toolbox, Koltermann shows new pictures on caves and crepuscular caves that are used as shelters. The works are based on the photos that Koltermann took while she visited the caves.

Between the walls of these habitations made by nature, time seems to stand still, when you consider for a moment the many fateful, beautiful, horrible, sad or just funny things the inhabitants may have experienced in the course of millenia – and which stories the already discovered and the yet to be discovered art works can tell us.

We should hope for another at least 39,000 years for this right to spontaneous artistic expression.

Especially as when playing solo or in small ensembles the unusual clarity of his play is audible. Gratkowski is also known as being a talented researcher of sounds, who continuously works on the expansion of his sound repertory and on the exploration of tonal possibilities of his instruments. he performs his micro-tonally oriented compositions with the Multiple Joy[ce] Orchestra.

Gratkowski plays in a number of ensembles, among these since 1999 the duo with the Italian trombonist Sebastiano Tramontana. He has played on nearly every German and on numerous international Jazz and contemporary music Festivals including Vancouver, Toronto, Chicago, New York, Seattle, Quebec, Les Mans, Muelhuus, Groeningen, Nickelsdorf, Barcelona, Lithuania, Warsaw, Zagreb, Prague, Bratislava, Sofia, Bucharest, Odessa, Huddersfield, London.

He has been teaching saxophone and ensembles at the Cologne, Berlin and Arnhem Conservatory of Music and is giving workshops all around the world.

Two painters at the Toolbox
Ekkehard Vree creates, through boldly applied paint and through splodges that leak into amorphous forms, which in turn are drawn over, watercolour portraits with a lyrical appeal. Vree fascinates us with his spirited choice of unrealistic colour and his hesitant lines, achieving a truly intimate encounter with the portrayed people. Moving, poetic, elegant.
Vree lives and works in Viernheim, southern Hesse.

Andreas Wolf is an abstract painter, who, in contrast to Vree, works on his paintings slowly and for a long time. In his work, he strives to reach a tremendous compositional complexity. Every single element in a picture is supposed to enter into a dialogue with every other element; visual foci are set – and thwarted at the same. Tensions are hold in balance. The finished painting eludes easy intelligibility, but with close attention, paths through the picture become apparent. Wolf’s paintings are like wonderfully rich landscapes, inviting us to explore at leisure.
Wolf lives and works in Berlin.

Seven Operations for Finding Meaning 2 is a joint project by visual artist and painter Antero Kahila and poet-musician Kirsi Poutanen. An impulse for the project was given by the poem Das Kind ist erstaunlich by Poutanen (from the book of poems Villonin puutarha, Helsinki: Tammi 2014).This multidisciplinary joint installation consists of three independent components and is a result of a chain reaction: first there was a poem that inspired a painting, which in turn inspired the audio piece heard in the gallery.

A large painting by Antero Kahila in the gallery is accompanied by Poutanen’s sound installation, which exposes the surface to the senses, to exploration and auditory probing, to an attempt at uncovering the existence of something that evades conscious perception in the events and situations shown on the surface of the painting.
Maybe that ‘something’, let us call it variable x, has been waiting for exactly this moment, the very moment of the birth of this work of art, in order to be encountered as ‘otherness’.

Antero Kahila is a Finnish visual artist and a painter. In his latest series of work Kahila has dealed with alienation and withdrawal. His art explores the boundaries of human understanding and seeks answers to impossible questions. It explores the being of the world in us; Where does the self end and the world begin? Where and what are the beginning and end of a subject that one seeks to understand? This is Kahila’s second exhibition in Toolbox. During the last few years he has made several co-operation projects with poet-musician and actress Kirsi Poutanen. Poutanen is a well-known singer and musician in Finland, especially for her skills in Portuguese fado music. She has released a number books of poems and also been seen on theatre stages as an actress, performer and as a scriptwriter.

If you’re interested in participating to the event with a lecture/performance/music/poetry reading or you would like your small prints and zines on display, please contact us: info.galerietoolbox@gmail.com ! Last day of entry: 10th of April

I am interested in putting into visual form subjects involving humanity: various situations in life, problem solving abilities or inabilities, attitudes to oneself, towards other people and other species. Not to mention body language, non-verbal communication and the subconscious. Emotions, joys and sorrows alike, come across from the body in many ways. Perhaps this is the reason why I have chosen human shape as a basis of my works.

In the exhibition the humanity is both present and absent in my works. Plants, mice and parts of human body interlock. The works are linked into the ephemeral qualities of life and the cycles of nature. Decaying body feeds another living creature, which in turn fades and gives birth to something new.

In the airborne work ”Witches´ Broom” a mother mouse is climbing a chain. Weather beaten plants are bare with only few leaves. Mice and other rodents are survivors. They endure also the ultimate hardships, even beyond the human existence.

Hey, you, creative! Would you like to find a form for your little manifesto? Or collage? Maybe you want to tell an original story, or make something educating?

Zines are an excellent low-bar way to publish your poetry, comics – or even a polaroid collection. They can work as flyers as well as a piece of art. In the workshop we give instructions on how to make a zine from only one printer paper – no stapler needed!

In this workshop the point is to let the imagination flow and to connect, talk and make zines with like-minded creatives. There is no age limit or any drawing or writing skills required.

The workshop is led by comic artist Siiri Viljakka. We provide the required materials for the workshop, but you can take pencils etc. of your own with you.

The material cost of workshop is 2 euros per person. The language of the workshop is English. There is a limited workspace for attenders, so first come & first serve!